High incidence of type 1 diabetes in adolescents and young adults in Eritrea

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Eritrea has no data on type 1 diabetes incidence in children and youth; therefore, a study was undertaken to determine this in persons aged <25 years. METHODS: Data were collected on new type 1 diabetes diagnoses during 2019, from district, provincial and national hospitals. Type 1 diabetes was diagnosed according to standard WHO criteria. No secondary ascertainment source was available. 95% confidence intervals were computed based on approximation to the Poisson distribution, and age and gender effects were analysed with Poisson regression. RESULTS: There were 532 new cases of type 1 diabetes. Mean ± standard deviation (range) age of diagnosis was 16.2 ± 5.7 (1.5-24.9) years, an..